Like Icarus before him, Deobra Redden took flight… and immediately regretted it.
Redden took a guilty plea to a felony battery charge. After asking for probation, explaining that he was “at a better place in my life,” Clark County Judge Mary Kay Holthus snarked back, “I think it’s time you get a taste of something else.” Not a great moment for judicial professionalism, to be honest.
As it happened, it was the judge who got a taste of something else when Redden proceeded to bound from the defense table over the four-foot bench attempting to sack Holthus to push her out of field goal range.
Now Redden’s been sentenced to 26-to-65 years for that jump.
The sentence is so long because Redden pleaded guilty to attempted murder by way of mental illness — he was not on his medications at the time of the jump — for the attack, despite seeming only to add another felony battery to his belt. Which is still extraordinarily serious, especially as an attack on a judge, but taking this to attempted murder involves a leap to rival Redden’s.
But this was the deal prosecutors would offer and so here we are.
Man who jumped a desk to attack a Nevada judge in the courtroom is sentenced
Earlier: Defendant Leaps Over Bench To Attack Judge, Gets Pummeled By Law Clerk
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.